Browsing Quotes With Tag: language (11)
-
Let the word stand on its own. If it is the right word, it will work without help. If it’s the wrong word, adding other words to it will just make it seem desperate.
Speaker: Thom MerrilinSource: A Memory of LightPosted: 11 May 2013 at 12:17 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
It seems to me a lot of trouble in this world has its origins in vague speech. Most people, when they go around not speaking clearly, somewhere in their unconscious they’re asking for trouble
Speaker: Haruki MurakamiSource: Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the WorldPosted: 22 Aug 2010 at 6:22 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule
Speaker: Stephen KingPosted: 23 Mar 2010 at 5:22 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
Speaker: Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)Posted: 04 Sep 2009 at 5:36 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Definitions are not correct or incorrect, they are simply useful or useless, where usefulness is judged by the clarity of one’s attempts at communication.
Speaker: SeanPosted: 06 Aug 2009 at 9:17 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.
Speaker: Michel de MontaignePosted: 05 Aug 2009 at 6:32 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
I enjoy reading the leaflets that come with medication, the respite provided by the precision of each technical term, which convey the illusion of meticulousness and a frisson of simplicity, and elicit a spatiotemporal dimension free of any striving for beauty, creative angst or the never-ending and hopeless aspiration to attain the sublime.
Speaker: Muriel BarberySource: the Elegance of the HedgehogPosted: 25 Jun 2009 at 7:35 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
It is often forgotten that (dictionaries) are artificial repositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature.
Speaker: Jorge Luis BorgesPosted: 28 Nov 2008 at 1:23 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Dictionaries are like watches: the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
Speaker: Samuel JohnsonPosted: 28 Nov 2008 at 12:56 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
The English language is rather like a monster accordion, stretchable at the whim of the editor, compressible ad lib.
Posted: 16 Nov 2008 at 3:56 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
You make about 3 million mistakes, then you’re done.
Speaker: Richard G. ScottPosted: 21 Aug 2008 at 1:16 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment!